Jennifer Strebel-Newman

On April 15, 1959 at about 1pm, a tiny 5 pound baby girl was born to Richard Martinez Strebel and Virginia Asia Reyes Strebel at St. Mary's Hospital in Manila, Philippines. Nineteen year old Virginia named her first born child, Jennifer Reyes Strebel... or so she thought... Little did she know that when she was not looking, her mother-in-law added a middle name of Socorro to Jennifer's Birth Certificate. Virginia was shocked to hear of the addition at her daughter's baptismal but was not completely displeased. In Spanish, the meaning of Socorro was “Our Lady of Perpetual Succour/Help” which was a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Almost about every year after Jennifer's birth, Richard and Virginia gave her a new sibling. She became the eldest of 6 beautiful and unique Strebel daughters: Elizabeth, Susan, Marylou, Annabelle and Greta.

Jenny, as her family preferred to call her, was said to be a cry-baby. She was very fussy and always wanted attention. As a baby, she slept all day and was awake all night...funny enough, she pretty much kept this same sleeping pattern into adulthood. Growing up, Virginia describes Jenny as being a girly-girl who loved to try on and wear different shades of lipstick... As an adult, Jenny believed that no matter what, lipstick should always be applied before leaving the house. Virginia also said that Jenny was shy as a little girl... to all those who knew her as an adult, the shyness definitely did not stay. Jenny grew to be a very confident, outspoken, prideful, outgoing young lady with a very distinctive loud voice and a unique sense of humor. Like all people, she had her flaws because of course, no one is perfect. She could be very unorganized, lazy with chores and tended to procrastinate till the last possible moment. Her youngest sister Greta recalls Jenny always having a bad habit of never having gas in her car. She says Jenny would take her lunch money from her special hiding place next to her History book to use for gas then would later repay her with toys that she would bring home for her from work. As an adult, Jenny was still bad with filling up her gas tank. Her husband Jim would joke all the time about how Jenny liked to drive on vapors. Her sister Susan recalls times when she would wash, iron and lay out her work clothes to prepare them for the next day only to wake up the next morning and find them missing and Jenny coming home in them later :) Laundry and house work were not on Jenny's list of favorite things to do, but she developed a very good talent for cooking, relentless teasing and stating her opinions.

Jenny would share stories of how hard life was in the Philippines and growing up. She use to talk about always having to eat soups and how on occasion they would get to eat seafood and meat. She always spoke highly of her nanny/housekeeper, Camillo, who did just about everything in the house for her and her family. Jenny shared funny stories of how her sisters use to play pranks on her and put chickens on her chest while she was sleeping. She would wake up screaming and terrified. Because of this, Jenny hated and feared not just chickens, but any type of bird for the rest of her life.

Jenny would always reminisce about how smart, pretty and popular she was in high school at Feati University. She would always tell her daughters stories about her “mickey-mouse relationships,” having more than one boyfriend at a time, and how skinny she was but with “the boobs” to give her daughters life lessons on how not to take boys too seriously. She would always make an emphasis on how family would always be there for you in the end, no matter what you were going through... heartbreak, sadness, happiness... family will always be with you.

In 1978, Richard and Virginia immigrated to the United States to give their family a better life. They moved to Fullerton, California 8 months before their children to find a home, a job and to start the petition for the rest of their family. In February 1979, when Jenny was 20 years old, her and her sisters joined their parents. The Strebels stayed in Orange County for a few yews before purchasing their first home in Riverside California.

In 1980, at the young age of 21, Jenny married her first husband, Samuel Leano Parlan in a beautiful wedding at the Holiday Inn Hotel In Anaheim. They loved to watch Kung-Fu movies together. Jenny's favorite fighter was Ti Lung and her favorite movie was Seven Blows of the Dragon. When she had a favorite movie or song, she had a habit of constantly repeating it over and over again until she found her next favorite. Unfortunately her marriage to Sam was short-lived, but together they made an adorable bald china doll looking baby girl named Sherylynn Strebel Parlan in July of 1983. Her daughter from the age of 3, was nicknamed Teppy. Jenny use to sing “Tippy, tippy toe, tippy toe” because Teppy would always be sneaking around as a baby and getting into all sorts of things that she was not suppose to be doing...Jenny told a story of when Teppy was a baby in her walker and kept tip-toeing into the kitchen then hiding around a corner. She said Teppy was a hyper baby who always had to be followed and sometimes even leashed. When she followed Teppy into the kitchen to see what she was up too, she found her hiding in the corner, trying to eat sweet grapes with barely any teeth :)

In 1986 while working in the Juvenile Hall Orange County Records Department, she came across a probation officer named Jimmy Dwayne Newman. Jenny would tell stories about how he use to relentlessly ask her out and how she would always refuse him. She said after all the begging and flirting, she finally caved in and said yes, thinking maybe after one date, Jim would back off. Things did not work as she planned...

In June 1989, at the age of 30, Jenny married Jim. It was an intimate affair by the gorgeous cliffs of Laguna Beach with only a minister and her sister Susan. Jim tells the funny story of how Jenny did not even take the day off from work to get married and had him call her in sick right before the ceremony! After the marriage, Jenny and her daughter Teppy moved into Jim's Long Beach condominium. Teppy was 6 years old at the time and was very sad to leave her Papa Richard and Mama Virginia's house. While living in Long Beach, Jenny had some clashes with her stepdaughter Kristin. Kristin was very social and loud and always had parties on the weekends at the condo while her dad and new members of her life were trying to sleep... It took several years before Kristin and Jenny developed a loving stepdaughter-stepmother relationship, but when it finally did happen, Kristin accepted her new family with warm and welcoming open arms.

In the early 90's, Jim & Jenny purchased their first home in Temecula, Ca. It was a very nice, new 2 story house close to the vineyards. Teppy remembers that when she was little, Jenny would put her in the car and they would drive from Temecula to Green River where they would meet Jim at Coco's so her mom could go to work and she could ride back home on her stepdad's drive home from his work. Despite the commute, both Jim and Jenny worked out of Orange County. Jim still worked as a Probation Officer but Jenny became a Clerical Coordinator Secretary at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian where she worked over 20 years until her sickness. Her sister Susan who got the opportunity to work with Jenny as a secretary on a different floor, shares how she would always bring her older sister lunch on the days that they worked together. Susan says they would always wait for one another to take breaks, lunch, go to meetings and even walk to the parking garage together then continue to talk on their cell phones until they both reached their homes. Susan remembers Jenny as always being hyper and happy at work. She was always socializing with friends and sending patients to Susan's floor to create more work for her then calling her and mischievously laughing in her distinctive giggle. Jenny had a very close group of friends at Hoag. She went on trips to New York and Europe with them and loved playing silly games on Facebook with them.

In 1992, Jim and Jenny had their first daughter together, Caitlin Michelle Newman. Jenny loved babies and kids so much. When she was happy, she had a very child-like spirit and loved to play and tease. She would make up a song and dance for each of her children. She called Caitlin her “Sissy-Put” (pronounced Poot) created from an unknown word Caitlin use to say as a baby that sounded like “rasapoot.” Jenny use to sing “The sissy-put, the lala-put, the only put-ki-put-ki-put!!” She joked and thought of Caitlin as her little actress because when Caitlin would get upset as a baby, she would arch her back and put her hand on her forehead as if trying to be “overdramatic.” Even at an older age, Jenny would refer to Caitlin as a “Queen-Bee” because she would still be dramatic or fuss about things she did not like or did not want to do :)

In 1994, at the age of 35, Jenny had her baby boy, Jimmy Dwayne Newman Jr. or better known as “Tikey.” Jenny would always sing to him, “Mr. Tikes, Mr. Tikes, give me love, give me love, all your love” and whenever she wanted hugs, she would say, “Hugtime! Hugtime!” Other silly things she would call Tikey were “Tikeyboy, the Babyboy,”or “Bunnie-Boy”like Tigger would call Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh. She would also sing to him, “My B-I-B-O-Y, my only B-O-Y!!” A funny baby memory that she liked to share was when Tikey was about 2 years old was when he was trying to reach for something on her bedside table but was not tall enough to reach. She found it hilarious watching him look around the room then come back to the table carrying a phonebook, putting it on the floor to step on it then finally reaching what he wanted. From then on she thought he was a baby einstein.

In 2000, at the age of 41, Jenny had her youngest baby girl, Kara Nicole Newman. Kara's nicknames evolved a bit starting with Budgie, to Buttcake, and lastly to Wow-wow-wow! When Jenny would be a volunteer mom at Kara's preschool, she would also call her “Mrs. Weather” based off a song Kara would sing in class. “Mrs. Weather, Mrs. Weather, how is your weather today? Is it sunny, is it rainy, is it cloudy today??” and Kara would always look into the sky and tell her mommy the weather. When Kara was 5 years old she went with Jenny to Caitlin's dance competition auditions. While she was waiting, she found other kids to play with to keep her busy until eventually all the kids went into a room. Kara looked at her mom and pointed to the room and asked if she could go in there too. It was a Mini Hip-Hop Team audition. Jenny, thinking since Kara really had no dance experience, shrugged her shoulders and said okay, why not? Low and behold, an hour later, Kara made the audition! 7 years later, Kara still has a true passion for dance. Jenny, whether she knew it or not, became a dance mom. Her other daughters Teppy, Caitlin and even Kristin had also danced before but none had the same natural talent, emotion, or intensity that Kara possessed. Jenny loved putting costume bows or “wows” as she liked to call them in Kara's hair and applying make-up and eyelashes on her until she looked perfect. Even when Jenny had started to work full time at Hoag, she rarely missed a dance competition and would even go to the dance studio 2-3 times a week just to watch and socialize with the other mothers. Jenny had such a warm and friendly personality that she made friends wherever she went.

Jenny also had an amazing love for dogs. She would always treat them as they were babies or children as well. A funny story is when she started researching different dogs online and came across the picture of an English Bulldog. She loved the way they looked with all their wrinkles. She said if she got one she would name it Rufus, because that was a very English name that she got from her Harry Potter book. For about the next 1-2 years, she and her son Tikey would always joke around about how much they missed Rufus, even though they did not even have him yet. The rest of her family just thought she was being silly until one day, Rufus became a real dog. Except, he was not an English Bulldog but rather an Ori-pei (Shar-pei/Pug) or designer dog as she liked to put it. His full name became Rufus James Newman. He was a very blonde wrinkly shar-pei looking puppy that the entire family fell in love with, even though some of her sisters found Rufus's wrinkles to be ugly, she loved him very very much. Jenny referred to Rufus as her “son with a tail” and would even sing songs and give nicknames to him as well like “Rufus James, the baby James” or randomly call out, “Oh Indeed!!!” Her and Tikey also loved to tell Rufus that he was a “bad poopy indeed for the society indeed.” Other family dogs that she also adored were Mightor, Brewsky, Mackeyboy, Simba, Wooby, Lilly, Boodles and Penny.

Whether her children knew it or not, Jenny was the best mom they could have ever asked for. She loved children so much and was completely self-less. She wanted to give her children all the things she couldn't have while growing up. She put them in activities like karate, gymnastics, band, baseball, hockey, cheer and dance. She wanted them well-rounded in both education and extra-curricular. Jenny would always make sure they had everything they needed before she even thought of getting something for herself. She worked so hard at trying to provide these luxuries for her kids even when money was tight. She would work extra hours, use money out of her retirement fund or even open credit cards. If she had something her kids liked, she would offer to let them have or borrow whatever it was. Jenny was never an affectionate mother, but through her playfulness, teasing, and tough love encouragement, the children had to read in between the lines to know that what she was really saying to them was, “I love you.” She never wanted to miss out on anything that was going on... this might have added to her fear of getting a doctor's checkup when she first felt a lump in her right breast in October 2010.

Jenny never said a word, but continued living life as she normally did. She was a very fun loving person but also had a very bad temper on her. Like any other person, she had her good days and her bad days... sometimes a bit extreme, but everyone has their days. She loved to always play, joke and tease. She had the funniest sense of humor even though it could be a little nasty at times. She loved trying to give out advice on life even though she may have had a funny way of saying or phrasing things such as “Can you get me the thing over there?” and people would usually respond, “What thing over where??” but eventually everyone came to an understanding of what she was trying to say :) Aside from being a dance mom, Jenny loved gossiping on the phone with her parents, sisters and family, cooking, shopping, playing on the computer and hanging out with her family. Her all time favorite stores were TJ Maxx, Bath & Body Works, Brighton and Macys, which she could spend hours in. On the computer she loved to Youtube and look up her favorite songs. She liked to blast them and sing along then repeat the process over again. She did the same watching Kara's dance videos repeatedly. She also enjoyed browsing through the celebrity gossip online at People.com. She was always entertained by who was dating who, who was getting pregnant, married or divorced, etc., but most of all she loved to be on Facebook and adored playing Farmville. She would have her daughter and all her friends and co-workers send her gifts to help her build her farm. She even played Farmville on her mother Virginia's Facebook so she had 2 farms to watch over and keep her busy. It was funny because she would even call her children to harvest her crops and replant new ones for her when she was at work and could not do it herself. She said she enjoyed playing so much because it relaxed her and would calm her down. She said it was an escape where she could pretend that she was a real farmer :) Jenny also enjoyed watching movies and tv shows with her kids. She loved Harry Potter, read all the book and really enjoyed the series with Teppy and Tikey. She even went to some of the midnight premiere showings at the theater with all the kids. Jenny really enjoyed anything that had a magical element or theme. Some of her favorite shows were Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Charmed and more recently Wizards of Waverly Place. She also got into all the Kardashian reality shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kim and Kourtney Take NY and Khloe & Lamar with Caitlin and Kara. They loved watching all together then gossiping about it after. Last but not least, she enjoyed watching CSI & Law and Order marathons with Jim.

It was not until May 2011 that Jenny finally had to face her fear because it literally gave her no option to continue avoiding it. A very large tumor broke through her skin and she was forced to go to the hospital. It was Mother's Day when Jenny announced to her family that she had Stage 3 Breast Cancer on her right side. Soon after, she started treatment which was a combination of radiation, everyday for 15 minutes, and chemotherapy once a week. Eventually the radiation stopped, but Jenny continued on the chemo for at least 15 sessions. She was still very prideful during her sickness and never once revealed how much she was suffering or how much pain she was in to her family. She was such a strong woman with a very high pain tolerance. She had so much love and support throughout the course of her sickness. Her sisters and her parents would come over and visit, buy groceries, make dinner and even clean the house. All the family bought her beautiful scarves, wigs, robes and nice pajamas... anything they thought would make her more comfortable or happy. Between her sisters, parents, husband and children all caring for her, Jenny received lots of loving care and support, but sometimes when it's God's Will, there is nothing anybody can do to prevent the inevitable. Treatment did not work as effectively as the doctors all hoped. The cancer spread into her lymph nodes and greatly to her lungs which caused a severe lack of oxygen, making it very difficult for her to breathe. On February 4, 2012 she was admitted into the hospital because it became even harder for her to breathe. That Sunday, all her immediate and extended family as well as some friends gathered around her bed to comfort her, love her and to let her know it was okay if she could no longer hang on...

.Jennifer Strebel-Newman became an Angel in her daughter's arms before sunrise Monday morning. She was a beloved daughter, sister, wife and mother. Jenny will always be greatly missed and continually loved and remembered always. Rest In Peace until we all meet again someday. We will keep you always in our hearts...

Jennifer Strebel-Newman

April 15, 1959- February 6, 2012